Editors’ Introduction

In this issue of the journal, we look back to look forward, dedicating a significant Special Section to celebrating the life and legacy of Judith Plaskow, founding coeditor of the Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion (JFSR). Jin Y. Park recalls for readers that Plaskow's groundbreaking work, Standing Again at Sinai: Judaism from a Feminist Perspective (1990) began with Plaskow's reminder that feminist Judaism "begins with hearing silence … noting the absence of women's history and experiences as shaping forces in the Jewish tradition" (78). The journal has been a space to hear those silences into speech and develop an archive that resists erasure of women's religious history and experiences in Judaism and other religious traditions.

The Articles extend the work of hearing silences and noting absences in Catholic and Black evangelical contexts. In "Women, Priesthood, and Catholic Celibacy," Alejandro Díaz Domínguez presents empirical analysis of how religious affiliation, attitudes, and contextual measures influence support for or against married priests and women's ordination within the Latin American context. Domínguez demonstrates how preferences of parishioners or contextual factors may in fact impact a seemingly unchangeable tradition of an all-male, unmarried priesthood. Pushing back on a similarly intransigent assumption in "We Aren't the World," Elisabeth Valentin addresses whether and how Black women in Black evangelical churches negotiate their collective, intersectional identities that contend with how oppression is buffered and reified. Valentin focuses on the deployment of symbolic boundaries, specifically "'us versus the world'" (51, 59), to upend singular interpretations of identity in favor of more accurate intersectional identities.

The first of two In a Different Voice sections follows these articles. Jewish scholar and artist Alicia Jo Rabins's three poems highlight Jewish themes through everyday encounters related to counting the days, wilderness, and the transition to a new year (Rosh Hashana). They take the perspective of a woman, mothering and being mothered, in multiple relationships and changing over time. Rabins beautifully reimagines traditional religious moments through the mundane. In the second In a Different Voice section later in the issue, Japanese American poet Kesaya Noda shares three poems—"California Stories"—from her forthcoming collection New Bones. On theme for this issue, Noda lifts up the silences and makes plain the contradictions that absent (some) women in religious contexts at the intersections of immigration, racism, and patriarchy in non-Christian and non-Western traditions. Both poets highlight the everyday fruits and struggles of women in relationship to religion—a poetic version of what Plaskow's scholarship and leadership did and does so well.

The Special Section: Honoring Judith Plaskow contains two parts. First, we capture and archive the American Academy of Religion (AAR) panel that celebrated her induction into the National Women's Hall of Fame on March 5, 2024, in New York City. Plaskow is the first feminist scholar of religion to receive this honor. The contributors are friends, colleagues, and the next generation of scholars that she has mentored. Rita Nakashima Brock shares the introduction she wrote on behalf of Plaskow for the March 2024 induction ceremony, providing background and context for the magnitude of this honor. Jin Y. Park, the then president of the AAR, provides introductory remarks that capture the Plaskow's impact on the study of religion more broadly. This section includes reflections by Emilie M. Townes, Max Strassfeld, Natalie Imperatori-Lee, Michal Raucher, and Julia Watts Belser that highlight how Plaskow's scholarship, mentorship, and activism changed their lives as well as the academic and community spaces in which they reside. Plaskow's influence cannot be fully captured but ought to always be recognized through the imagery of a stone breaking the serene surface of patriarchy, destabilizing the seeming solid structures of Christian supremacy, racism, and heterosexism that continue to affect religious communities and religious studies. The ripples of Plaskow's influence are especially significant as they flow openly into new waters and through a variety of generational waves. Raucher, when deciding whether or not to serve as the current coeditor of JFSR, recounts a conversation with Plaskow: "She said, 'As coeditor of the journal, you have the opportunity to shape the field.' Judith shaped the field—and all of us—through the journal, and I am eternally grateful" (97).

The Special Section concludes with "A Conversation between Judith Plaskow and Mara Benjamin: Shifting Paradigms (Again)." She and Benjamin, Jewish feminist scholars who received their doctorates more than three decades apart, have been studying in hevruta (study partnership) since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Their conversation gives us a window into Plaskow's commitment to a shared, relational, embodied, and contextually relevant approach to Jewish study through their reflection on this theological and intellectual journey.

It is fitting that the Book Conversation, "Responding to the Trans Talmud," follows the section honoring Judith Plaskow, as the book author, Max Strassfeld, notes, "She has helped make careers like mine possible in the academy; we are dining on the fruits of her labor. … She envisioned for us a new Sinai; and in doing so she transformed what is possible" (87–88). The conversation on Strassfeld's Trans Talmud: Androgynes and Eunuchs in Rabbinic Literature (2022) ranges from discussions of methods to resist anachronism to the personal impact of studying narratives of androgynes and eunuchs to questions of audience. Strassfeld suggests the text is as much for those who study gender, trans, and queer theory as it is for those with specialties in the studies of rabbinics. Its nonspecialist approach makes the insider conversations both accessible and relevant in ways that could have a significant and necessary gender-disruptive impact on feminist studies in religion.

After the second contribution of poetry, this issue ends with a conversation of the Feminist Liberation Theologians' Network reflecting on the 2024 US presidential election. By the time of publication, the consequences predicted by contributors may well have been enacted or debunked. What will remain timeless are the strategies for resistance and survival in service of flourishing that they share: cultivation of fierce friendships, development of new apocalyptic imaginaries, honoring and supporting Black women's political movements, and encouraging the voices of feminist theologians in the public square.

We hope this issue inspires and warns readers in this historic moment. For all the ways the journal, through Plaskow's initial vision and ongoing support, tries to break silences and uncover absences, there is much work still to be done. 

Back To: Volume 41 Number 1